Microsoft believes “space for both” Xbox One and Steam Machines

Microsoft has said it isn’t threatened by the oncoming Steam Machine army, but says there’s “space for both” under your TV set.

Marc Whitten, Corporate Vice President of Xbox, has said he’s really excited to the Xbox One and Steam Machines share the game console market. Of course, he doesn’t bring the PS4 into the equation.

“This is literally the most golden of golden ages that I’ve ever seen around gaming,” Whitten told Engadget at a CES interview. “I think this is what makes gaming great.”

CES 2014 was dominated this year by announcements from Valve on upcoming Steam Machines and the new prototype Oculus Rift “Crystal Cove”.

“You love seeing the passion of seeing someone like Palmer [Luckey] and those guys at Oculus. And seeing someone like John Carmack get on and really be focused on it is great. I don’t know how it could be anything but good [for the industry].”

Whitten admits he’s had a go with the next-generation Oculus Rift and is impressed by what he’s seen. He won’t say whether Microsoft has the Oculus Rift dev kits though.

Although Whitten sees the benefits of Steam Machines, he’s still sceptical.

“I personally don’t know how to think about Steam Machines yet,” he said. “I’m not knocking it or whatever. I continue to think that PC gaming — the sort of uber configuration and I can change everything and I can mod — that’s an important thing and there’s a lot of people that wanna do that.”

However, he believes that Steam Machines are in a totally different category to the like of the Xbox One and PS4, something that will mean Valve’s SteamOS will attract a totally different type of gamer.

“When you get into that living room environment, you don’t want to spend any of your brain cells doing anything but being entertained. I don’t want to work on it; I don’t want to feel like I have to know how it works. I would like to be blowing things up now, or watching a thing now. That’s the fundamental thing that you want to do. I think there’s space for both. I’m not sweating it.”Read more: Xbox One vs PS4